


Quest for Lunch

by dlyt



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: Gen, hunger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8263430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dlyt/pseuds/dlyt
Summary: Don Schanke needs lunch, and he's not the only one!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LastScorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LastScorpion/gifts).



> This story was inspired by a prompt from LastScorpion during the recent 2016 FKFicFest. The pairing requested was Don/Myra Schanke, and the prompt was "Hunger." I never quite got 'round to the pairing, because the prompt alone was enough to get the story going. Then I got involved in one of the other prompts, and wrote a different story for the FKFicFest, but this one kept demanding to be published as well, so here it is....

Lunch was on Detective Schanke’s mind, and nothing else could occupy that space until he was adequately fed.

This was not just any lunch. Oh, no! This was a special occasion, calling for special lunchtime considerations and accommodations. This was the Post Annual Physical Exam Fasting Bloodwork Lunch. Schanke hadn’t eaten anything, nor drunk anything, in almost 16 hours. Not only that, but he’d been forced to go on one of Myra’s rabbit food diets in order to drop some weight before the physical, and rabbit food just didn’t satisfy  a large, robust figure such as he had. The combination of the twin trials of diet and fasting meant that, by the time the physical was done and lunchtime arrived, he was HUNGRY!

He stopped at home first, sure that Myra would have anticipated his desperate need for sustenance and prepared him a fast-breaking feast. Alas, this was not to be, for he’d forgotten that today was also Jenny’s school field trip day, and Myra had gone with her class as a chaperone. 

He checked the pantry and refrigerator quickly for the makings of a quick snack while he hunted down proper nourishment, but soon discovered that both were nearly bare. Of course! He, Myra, and Jenny would be going up to the cabin for a week of relaxation and fishing starting next week, and they were “eating down” to leave the pantry and refrigerator as empty as possible when they left. As a result, there was no bread, no milk, not a single egg, no lunch meat, no chips … well, you get the picture.

Schanke was undeterred, of course, if yet more peckish. He could always go out. After all, there was this new place near the precinct he’d been meaning to try. Who knows, maybe they’d have a new and different approach to his all-time favorite meal! Yeah! He was always in the market for a new and improved souvlaki! Not that you could really improve on the classic, but he was always willing to give a newer version the benefit of the doubt.

Let’s see … keys, wallet, comb, all set. 4…3…2…1…Ignition…

Nothing.

What can go wrong with a car in the 5 minutes it takes to walk into a house and discover an empty larder? He tried again.

Nothing.

No grinding noise, no blinking lights, no “check engine” light. It was dead.

With a sigh, Schanke popped the hood and peered under it. All the wires appeared to be connected. Nothing “smelled wrong.” He jiggled a few things and tightened the connectors on the battery, and then tried again.

Nothing.

He debated taking the time to investigate further, but decided he was too hungry to concentrate. He’d have to order in. Not his best option, to be sure, but under the circumstances it would have to do.

Schanke returned to the house and called his mechanic to arrange for the car to be towed to the shop. Then he called and left a message for his partner, asking for a ride to work that evening. Then he called the local deli for a **deli** -very.

While on hold waiting for the highly distractible clerk to take his order, the lights flickered, once, twice, and then the power failed completely. The phone went dead in his hand.

“NO!!” he yelled at the temporarily useless device.

After a few moments of cursing the world, his luck, and every technician employed by the local power company, it suddenly occurred to him that one of his neighbors might still have power. He headed next door to the Petersons’ house to try his luck. No one was home, and there was no way to tell from the outside whether their power was on or off, so he continued to the next house. When the next 3 homes produced no results, he crossed the street and started banging on those neighbors’ doors. He finally found his elderly, retired neighbor, Mr. Showalter, at home. He, too, had no power. They concluded it must be a neighborhood blackout, and Schanke returned home to consider his next course of action.

The cell phone! Why hadn’t he thought of it earlier? Oh, right! He shook himself mentally. He’d loaned it to Jenny for her to use on her field trip, and she wouldn’t be home for … about 4 more hours!

The lone individual-serving sized can of sliced peaches in the pantry was looking pretty good to Schanke by then, and he popped the top open and dumped the contents into a bowl, grabbed a fork from the silverware drawer, and headed for the kitchen table. He ate them slowly while he read the nutrition label on the can. 60 calories per serving, was that all? Oh, he needed more to eat than that! He tilted the bowl to his lips and drank down the syrup, wondering if that added to the 60-calorie total or not.

He decided to have another look in the pantry.

Rice – required cooking, not possible without power;

Oatmeal – ditto;

Flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, confectioner’s sugar, cooking oil, cake mixes – nice to have, but useless to him now!

Baker’s chocolate, unsweetened. He shuddered. No, thank you!

Two stale crackers in a tall, open box – even as hungry as he was, he couldn’t get them down. They went back in the box, and the box to the trash bin.

Canned corned beef hash – also needed cooking;

Canned sauerkraut – no matter how much he liked it, there was no way he could eat an entire can! And certainly not cold!

He gave up, and went to bed. He needed some sleep before his night shift, anyway. He might as well sleep, since there was nothing to eat! He’d ask Nick, his buddy, his partner, to stop somewhere on the way into work. He started mentally cataloguing all of the take-out places between his house and the precinct. He got hungrier, just thinking about them.

Eventually he gave up on sleep. All he could think about was food, and his lack thereof! He got up, showered, dressed for work, and started pacing the floor.

Eventually, Myra arrived home with Jenny, and they quickly departed as a family to get Schanke fed before his shift started.

By the time Nick arrived to drive Schanke to work, he was full, happy, and sleepy, having missed out on his “beauty sleep” while in search of a meal. He yawned hugely while Nick drove.

All throughout the long shift, Schanke shared his woeful tale of hunger and contributing bad luck. “I’m telling you, partner, I’ve never been so hungry in my life! The cupboard was bare and I had no way to fill it, and no way to fill me, either, until Myra came home with the other car. It was _miserable_ , I tell you!”

Nick made the appropriate noises of commiseration. He was into his fourth day of a new protein shake regimen prescribed by his doctor, Natalie Lambert, and he was starting to get quite a bit hungry, himself. It didn’t help that Schanke was well-fed and warm in the seat next to him. The vampire listened to Schanke’s heartbeat with interest, then tuned the radio to the classic rock station to drown it out. The cool air circulating in the caddy with the top down helped him avoid the blood scent.

Nick’s “cupboard” wasn’t bare, but there was still nothing for him to eat. He would rather go hungry.

And he did.

_The End_


End file.
